


Static on the Line

by How_many_OTPs_can_I_have



Series: Static on the Line [1]
Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: Body Dysphoria, Bucky Barnes Feels, Bucky Barnes Needs a Hug, Bucky Barnes-centric, Catholic Bucky Barnes, Catholic Steve Rogers, Cuddling & Snuggling, Depression, Dissociation, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Everything is Beautiful and Everything Hurts, Flashbacks, Fluff and Angst, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Identity Issues, Kitty!Bucky, M/M, Mind Control Aftermath & Recovery, Natasha Romanov Is a Good Bro, Not Captain America: Civil War (Movie) Compliant, Post-Captain America: The Winter Soldier, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pre-Slash, Sam Wilson is a Gift, Slow Burn, Steve Rogers Needs a Hug, Stucky Big Bang 2016, The care and feeding of feral winter soldiers, Touch-Starved, canon-typical genetic modification, just add a few kitty genes to get, they get their hugs
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-24
Updated: 2018-01-20
Packaged: 2018-08-10 17:38:33
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 7,383
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7854679
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/How_many_OTPs_can_I_have/pseuds/How_many_OTPs_can_I_have
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Hydra's former asset (whom they enhanced with some panther genes) breaks free of their brainwashing, fighting their programming once Steve Rogers shatters it. Disoriented by the onslaught of emotions and memories that the blond man triggers in him, the man coming to identify himself as Barnes decides to follow Captain America once again... but from a safe distance.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. The Breaking

An overwhelming tide of confusion engulfs the Asset, immediately followed by a flood of fury. With the corner of its mind that remains self-possessed, the Asset dispassionately notes that the Target has held out remarkably long against its metal fist. But that thought is only one small drop in the roiling waves of its consciousness. It does not have the training to correct itself back to equilibrium. The only guidance that its weak, traitorous mind gives it is in the form of disjointed impressions that invade its senses before evaporating like exhalations in cold air. After the Target says “James Buchanan Barnes,” it sees the blurred face of a stern brunette uttering the same words with the same rhythm, albeit a different tone. But a moment later, all the Asset is left with is the impression of wrinkles, stubborn strength, and a knot of unsettling warmth wedged behind its breastbone.

 

The Asset breaks; it has been broken and it is doing the breaking now. It slams its metal fist into the Target’s face, desperately trying to quiet its mind by successfully completing the mission.

 

Then the Target summons an utterly disorienting tsunami of the damned impressions with ten monosyllables: ’ _Cause I’m with you ‘til the end of the line._ They flood the Asset to the point where it is incapable of making any sort of action. Echoes of sensation threaten to drown it, making its ears ring and increasing its respiration at an alarming rate. It is as if a small pebble is dropped into a suddenly still lake and then sets off a series of disproportionately vast, rippling waves.

 

When its senses register its surroundings again, the helicarrier is shuddering as its metal bones cave in on themselves. But the Asset barely notices that, because Captain America is listlessly sinking toward the polluted waters of the Potomac, exhaustion and relief (why would he be relieved?) letting his battered muscles go lax.

 

Finally, a **clear** impression jars the Asset: a nearly identical situation, but the perspective is reversed… Why is there so much wind and snow? And why does the Asset feel phantom needles of ice now? The Asset blinks, and its surroundings assert themselves again. The Asset sees the Captain’s limp body fall into the water.

 

Suddenly the Asset’s options are clearer: save the Target, or kill the Target (ignoring him is utterly impossible and not even a consideration). For the first time in its current memory, it makes a conscious and deliberate decision, jumping after the Target. The Target’s words had set off flashes of light in the Asset’s mind, flashes that adamantly demand elucidation. The Asset needs to follow the source of that light, can’t let it be doused.

 

So it plunges into the river after the man whose face flickers in its mind like a moth’s fragile wings. The Arm pulls the Target from the water, saving a life for the first time with the arm that had never known mercy before.

 

As the Asset drags the Target onto the riverbank as gently as it can, another flash of bright color trembles through its heart, both terrifyingly familiar and alien. The flash heralds even more impressions that threaten to bury the Asset with their emotional weight:  _“Stevie, ya can’t take on three guys who’re twice your size. You trying to kill me with worry, punk?” Paste on your nonchalant smirk so he doesn’t see how worried you really are,_ Bucky thought to himself. _You’ve gotta get him home an’ see how much damage they did. Please, God, let there be no broken ribs or anything more wrong with his lungs. Stupid punk’s just gotta prove that he ain’t weak. Couldn’t be further from the truth, though, ‘cause he always pulls through, nothing keeps him…_ Then the bright light dissipates.

 

The Asset’s mind strains to understand. It’s like seeing through a migraine, every memory a picture that’s been peppered with burns like bullet holes, been torn in two, and then has been put back together misaligned.

 

The Asset’s mind jolts with confusion again. Why had the Target’s face been attached to a smaller man’s body? Suddenly the words _“I joined the army”_ are echoing through the Asset’s mind, disjointed from any context, thereby distorting any meaning they might have held.

 

It stares down at the Target’s body, holds itself still. It inhales and exhales, collecting its impaired senses in preparation of reassessment, gathering critical Intel. It refocuses on the Target. The injuries he incurred would be fatal to anyone without the Serum, but provided timely and adequate repair and maintenance, no permanent injuries will be sustained. The Asset needs to relocate for its own maintenance. Yet it waits, on edge, for a positive sign of vitality from the Target. 

* * *

 

_“Don’t leave me, Steve. Don’t you dare.” Bucky was desperately trying to lend the smaller man his warmth and health, tucked behind him with his arm around him and his palm spread out on his friend’s chest._

 

_“Buck…” Steve’s whisper, as thin as a breath, wouldn’t have reached Bucky if he was any farther away. But he still managed to rasp, “Yer stuck with me… ‘til th’end o’ the line.”_

 

 _Bucky’s responding chuckle sounded more like a choked-off sob, but he wasn’t about to admit that to nobody. He tightened his hold, pulling Steve even closer to him, so achingly gently. He pressed his face to Steve’s hair, settling into his routine vigil of prayers accompanied by Steve’s rattling breaths._  

* * *

 

The Asset returns to the present, blinking rapidly while its thoughts scramble for some order, any order to curtail this chaos.

 

After a few more churning seconds, the former Target coughs once and then starts breathing. Finally satisfied with the sign of relative health, the Asset decides that it will not return to its handlers. It refuses to let them take away any of the fragments that it has gleaned, chaotic as they are. The last wipe had been sloppy enough that the Asset still retains the conviction that it _did_ know man on the bridge, the man currently unconscious at its feet. But it knows little else, and has no knowledge of what any of it means, even in light of its newly acquired sense-fragments. More data is required. And since its handlers had refused to give it any Intel on the subject, that left the Asset with the Captain. _Damn punk never watched his own skinny ass anyway._

 

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bucky's flashbacks and flickers of thought are in Italics. Right now, at the end of TWS, he only knows to identify as the WS. But even though he doesn't identify as Bucky yet, his flashbacks are from when he was unequivocally Bucky, so he's remembering each moment as Bucky remembered it. Because the mind "wipes" just suppressed certain neural pathways. With the Serum, I believe it could heal at least some of those pathways, so he's recovering chunks of his memories as he had previously remembered them. And then he comes back to the present and has to make sense of all the emotions and everything, so he's back to being the Asset.


	2. The Stake-Out

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> In order to reflect Bucky's state of mind right after TWS, I had him call himself "the Asset" and use "it" pronouns. In this chapter, he'll start to identify with and use male pronouns, but will relapse into thinking of himself as a thing when his Winter Soldier habits are brought to the forefront of his consciousness.
> 
> Anywho, thank you for reading! Enjoy. c:

The Asset gazes out the window at the unconscious Target in the hospital across the road. It has been 79 hours and 23 minutes since the Asset had decided to abandon its handlers. In that time, it self-administered first aid, raided a Hydra safehouse for cash and basic essentials, and hunkered down in an abandoned office with an optimal view of Captain Rogers and his recovery room.

 

As the Asset had maintained its stake-out, the Avengers would take shifts so that at least one of them was in the Captain’s room with him at all times. The Asset approves of this measure of security, especially in light of the hospital’s lackluster measures. Thus far, the Black Widow had only taken the first shift, which somewhat relieves the Asset (because she causes it a great deal of nebulous consternation). Hawkeye has been the only Avenger who has not taken a shift. Perhaps his conspicuous absence is related to the Widow’s disappearance; further data is needed for a complete analysis.

 

Currently, the Targ—Captain Rogers, rather, is trying to rise from his hospital bed without any assistance. He is able to wrestle with his dignity since Dr. Banner dozes in a nearby chair and no nurses are in the vicinity. The Asset realizes that its tail is sporadically twitching, as if it can’t find a spot to settle.

* * *

 

_“What the hell were you doin’ outta bed?!” Steve’s shoulders stiffened as Bucky all but slammed their apartment door shut behind them. The blond kept walking toward the kitchen, doing his best to regulate his rapid breathing and ignore the irate brunet following him. He got to the counter and was reaching into a cabinet for a glass when Bucky grabbed his shoulder. Bucky swung Steve around to face him, and then dropped his other hand onto Steve’s other shoulder. Stubborn sky blue eyes glared into determined steel blue ones. Neither budged for several lengthy moments, until Steve’s breaths broke down into the rapid gasps of an asthma attack._

_Bucky took Steve’s right hand and brought it to rest above his healthy heart before pulling him into a loose embrace. “Come on, buddy, just focus on breathing with me. In, and out...in, and out... Is that all you got, punk? C’mon, breathe in, and out... That’s it, pal. Keep going.” Bucky kept murmuring encouragement until Steve was finally breathing as easily as he ever could._

_Bucky grabbed a glass of water for him after giving his shoulders a squeeze of solidarity. “Thanks,” Steve muttered, plodding over to settle into the couch. Bucky shucked his jacket and shoes before curling on the other end of the couch and tucking his toes under his friend’s thigh. The corner of Steve’s mouth briefly quirked up as he glanced at Bucky._

_“I had to get the poster to Mr. Williams,” he sighed. “And then Mrs. McLeary needed help with her groceries.”_

_Now it was Bucky’s turn to sigh. “Didja really hafta walk all the way to the other side o’ Brooklyn? I coulda ran it to ‘im during my lunch break. You gotta take it easy so this cold doesn’t get worse and aggravate everything else, pal.”_

_Bucky knew he’d lost this argument when he saw Steve’s jaw set in that particular way and his eyes glint with that bright determination. “Buck, I gotta pull my weight, same as you.”_

_The brunet heaved a weary sigh, ran his fingers through his hair, and grumbled, “Well right now, you’re getting your stupid ass back to bed, alright?”_

* * *

 

The Asset returns to the present to see Captain Rogers knocking down his IV stand, thereby awakening Dr. Banner, who promptly rises to assist his recovering teammate. The Asset has barely made note of this before its resigned frustration rapidly shifts to undiluted confusion in the space of a just a few heartbeats.

 

* * *

_“The...daughter, she had...pigtails? What purpose do they serve? Their function is not apparent.”_

 

_He (at least, he thought he was a “he”; that pronoun sat easier on his mismatched shoulders than “she” did) spoke softly. But the handler heard him anyway. The handler abruptly seized his hair, wrenching his head up with the grip…_

* * *

 

The Asset’s mind jerks back from the recollection of one of the more painful wipes (more data needed; intel regarding itself is always insufficient). It catalogs its current levels of function: heart-rate increased by 13%, respiration increased by 18%. It also detects a slight layer of cooling sweat, and intermittent tremors through its flesh arm and hand. Deciding that opening one window could hasten the return to optimal functioning... _he_ opens one. Then he curls up against the opposite wall for a cycle of rest.

 

* * *

 

The rest cycles did not run smoothly that night. The Asset had to shut down after the strain of the memory malfunctions. But while asleep, faint memories echoed throughout... _his_ subconscious. They reverberated, starting as unease and rapidly building to a crescendo of utter panic.

 

So while his initial sleep was blissfully blank, nebulous nightmares followed shortly after and terrified him into wakefulness.

 

Adrenaline speeds through the Asset’s circulation as it jerks into a defensive crouch. Scanning the room, it detects no apparent threat. Yet the adrenaline renders it unable to stay still, so the weary Asset unfolds its limbs and paces around the safe-room...once... twice, thrice. Still, the agitation grips it, ratcheting up towards panic.

 

So it extends its pacing into perimeter checks, first of Rogers’ hospital, and then of the safe-room’s building. All remains clear of suspicious activity.

 

It returns to the safe room, and the adrenaline seems to evaporate. And so the Asset resettles into a corner and drops into more nightmares.

* * *

 

Barely a full REM cycle later, he awakens, shivering and gasping. All he remembers from this nightmare is cold, bone-marrow deep and thick as the walls of a stone prison cell.

 

Stiffly, the Asset moves closer to the windows and watches as gray dawn heralds a new day. He feels a tickle of a memory at the edges of his mind. He relaxes, letting it solidify in its own time.

 

Jesus, Mary, and Joseph, that’s beautiful _, he thought. Dark mountains contrasted against brightening rose and peach hues of the sunrise. It reminded Bucky of a painting Steve had made of the Brooklyn skyline, both as subdued and gorgeous as sleep-tousled hair streaked through with sunlight._

_Bucky thanked God for this moment of peace amidst the shit-heap of war. He would try to get dawn watch every day if it meant that he could forget why he was there for just one more minute._

 

The memory dissipates into the recesses of the Asset’s mind. But even back in the present, he is overtaken by the residual awe of that moment. It quiets the battered man’s mind, more rejuvenating than his troubled sleep. He never knew that he could simply appreciate something for its own sake. So he basks in the dual sunrises. With a sniper’s patience, he watches the sky lighten ever so gradually.

 

He is gently shaken from his reverie by quiet, yet distinct curses through two open windows on either side of a nearly empty street. The Captain is trying to extricate himself from his cot and the plethora of tubes attached to him in several places. But his efforts are futile, hence the emphatically muttered curses. The Asset is vaguely amused by this, especially when he sees the Black Widow giving Rogers her signature unimpressed stare from her seat at the corner of the room. He is a little alarmed that he seems to know how well that expression suits her, but he suppresses the emotion in order to concentrate on what the two across the street are saying.

 

“Rogers, if you’re done wrestling with your bed sheets, maybe you’d be interested in seeing your new apartment.” She quirks an eyebrow and a corner of her mouth when the Captain visibly perks up.

 

“Really, Nat?” he asks, “I can leave soon?”

 

She rolls her eyes. “Yes. You’ve kvetched enough. And besides, we don’t want to find out if your puppy eyes are actually deadly; the poor nurses need a break from the chronic swooning.”

 

Rogers huffs good-naturedly, finally succeeding in untangling himself enough to stand up. Romanova proceeds to gathers up the Captain’s scant belongings in the recovery room before leaving the room at his 8 o’clock.

 

The Asset is nervous once Rogers has left his field of vision. Grabbing a hat to cover the tips of his ears, he runs out of his safe-room and blends into the increasing foot traffic outside the hospital. He’s circled the block twice by the time that Rogers and Romanova exit the building and make their way to a sleek yet non-descript car pulled up to the curb.

 

“I call shotgun,” the redhead announces, throwing a triumphant smirk over her shoulder at the blond, who now has a pair of crutches. It’s endearing how he’s trying to use them without breaking them under his weight. Romanova opens both of the right side doors, then leans her elbow on the hood of the car while waiting for her hobbling teammate.

 

Rogers manages to fold himself into the car, giving Romanova a wry grin and a thanks when she closes the door behind him. Right before she gets in her own seat, the Asset catches a glimpse of the unidentified driver: blonde, male, approaching middle-aged, and wearing something vibrantly purple. “Off to casa Rogers!" the driver proclaims, "We’re takin’ you home, buddy-o.”

 

And without any further ado, they drive away.

  
The Asset’s mind numbs with sudden horror as he realizes that he has no way to know where they’re going.


	3. Insufficient Intel

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: implied child murder described -- it's vague and not explicit, but it's there.

The Asset stops walking so abruptly that several pedestrians run into him. Ambient static fills his ears, much like it would after a mind-wipe.

“Excuse me, sir. Are you alright?” It takes him a minute to realize that the inquiry is directed at him. He meets the speaker’s gaze briefly, nods, and forces his legs to move him down the street.

Bracing himself on a lamp-post, the Asset reviews his intel. The Captain’s teammate, code-name Black Widow, discharged him from the hospital. She and an unidentified man drove him away... This intel is insufficient. They did mention a “home,” though… Surely not where the Asset had shot Fury, Nicholas J? Regardless, he must check.

* * *

 

As he had suspected, the Asset finds no recent trace of Rogers and co. at Rogers’ previous apartment. He scours the surprisingly sparse set of rooms. He digs through any drawers he finds, rifles through every paper, even flips through his books to see if any papers are caught between the bound pages. _Nothing._ He’s lingered here too long; his training is torn between the need to ghost out the window and the need to gather pertinent intel.

Right as he decides to retreat to the safe-room, a movement catches in his periphery. A brochure has fallen out into the open, and now it waves in the wind at him. He snatches it before it can fly away. _Come learn about the man behind the Shield!_ It proclaims, reminding him (and isn’t that a beautiful thing: to experience a reminder?) that the Falcon, Sam Wilson, had teased the Captain about the museum exhibition dedicated to him.

 

* * *

 

So later on that day, Hydra’s former Asset finds himself visiting the Smithsonian’s Captain America exhibition. (Don’t ask him how he got past the metal-detector. The feat involved impeccable timing and a complicated gymnastics maneuver that could’ve gone horribly and painfully wrong.)

Details aside, he enters the exhibit, eyes compulsively scanning the crowd for threats. The incident with the helicarriers had prompted a surge in the exhibit’s attendance, so the number of people present unsettles him. He is able to move through the rooms without undue attention or contact, though, since they do make it easier to blend in. It’s hardly difficult for him to do so, because most of the information on the walls lies flatly in the Asset’s mind. It is nothing more than seemingly accurate intel.

A few pieces jar him with more echoes, however. Upon seeing a couple of the 4-Fs, the Asset hears _“Really, Rogers? Paramus? You’re stooping to_ Jersey? _You better share that in confession, punk.”_ Likewise, the life-sized outline of... _Steve, little Stevie_ before he got the Serum arrests him. The outline seems to acquire depth and color, vividly staring the Asset down despite having to look upwards. Eventually, someone bumps into the Asset, breaking him from the eerily imagined eye contact. He scuttles into the next room.

A detached chill ripples across his shoulders when he reaches the wall reflecting Bucky Barnes. Even here, most of the information is simply there to be absorbed. A mental itch creeps up him when he reads about his final mission under Captain Rogers’ command. It says that he fell from a rapidly moving train and into a snowy gorge. Could that be what his first clear memory fragment was? Highly probable, but insufficient data to unequivocally confirm.

But two things on this wall shock him to his core.

After the plaque describes Sergeant James B. Barnes' presumed death, it mentions how the military had presented his mother and sister with a memorial flag and a personal letter from Captain Steven G. Rogers, in which he swore to avenge his friend. But then come these staggering words: _the flag and letter pictured here currently remain in the possession of Rebecca Barnes Proctor._ The Asset’s mind reels with the name of Bucky Barnes’ sister: his _living_ sister, present tense. He can _remember_ her, in whole flashes of light: pigtails and ribbons and scraped knees, and how her small body would wrap around his as tightly as she could hug him. He even remembers teaching a taller version of his Becks how to dance, and how to punch a man if his hands wandered.

He’s become so agitated that the tail twitches within its holster despite the Asset’s training to keep it still whenever it is hidden. B…the Asset turns away in an attempt to collect his composure (even though only the most trained of eyes could spot the cracks in it), but freezes at what he sees next. Apparently, Captain America’s best friend had been immortalized as a teddy bear, a Bucky Bear. It’s just a teddy bear with a mask and a blue pea-coat. But it’s named after who he had been.

He tentatively tries on that former name, tasting the whisper of it as if he were testing the temperature of a pool with a toe. It weighs him down with a debilitating array of emotions (which at least make slightly more sense than they did on the collapsing hellicarrier). He stays locked in place, locked within himself, until a little voice sounds right at his side, his left side.

“I have a Bucky Bear just like that, but I have to keep him at home so he doesn’t get hurt. Bucky’s my favorite of the Howling Commandos,” it confidently informs him. “He looked out for Captain Rogers when he was little and always had his back. Who’s _your_ favorite?”

The...Bucky...Asset...Barnes, tilts his head down to see a young Latina girl whose thick, glossy curls are barely restrained by a hair tie. Her bright eyes solemnly meet his when he takes too long to respond. It only takes a few seconds for her to make the connection, too young to doubt the evidence of her senses. Her jaw drops briefly, but is quickly followed by a radiant smile.

“Hi, Mr. Barnes,” her smile dims ever so slightly, suddenly shy, “My name’s Gabriella. I’m so happy to meet you.”

Barnes feels warmer than he can ever remember feeling. The little girl starts fiddling with the hair ties around her wrist, so Barnes crouches down, softening his face into what he hopes is a smile.

“My mommy makes me wear a bunch of hair ties on my wrist ‘cause I’m always losing them and then my hair keeps falling in my face,” she starts to ramble. “It’s a lot harder to fight bullies if you can’t see ‘em.”

Barnes chuckles, short and rusty, but definitely a chuckle. Little Gabriella positively beams. She somehow perks up even more when she notices that he has long hair.

“Could I give you one of mine, Mr. Barnes? Pretty please?”

Blushing faintly at her sweet earnestness, he clears his throat and replies, “I’d be honored, miss.”

Carefully, Gabriella removes a dark blue band from her wrist. With even more care that borders on reverence, she takes the metal hand. Her brows furrow in concentration as she slides the tie over it. Her mission accomplished, she pats the hand. She notices that it’s hard and unyielding, anxiously peering at his face and asking if his hand is okay.

He hesitates, then quietly answers, “Yeah. It got hurt a long time ago, and uh...it was really bad. But it’s all fixed up now, stronger than before.”

Her features relax her worry away. She’s about to say or ask something else when a worried woman’s voice cuts through the air, “ _Gabriella,_ there you are! Thank God. _”_

An older version of Gabriella hurries over to them, pulling her into a tight hug and scolding her in rapid Spanish. The woman finally notices Barnes when she stops for breath. Some confusing impulse from decades past prompts him to straighten up and dip his head to her with a mumbled, “Ma’am.” He doesn’t know what to do with his hands, so they twitch restlessly at his sides until he stuffs them in his jean pockets.

The woman straightens as well, “I’m sorry if my daughter bothered you, sir.”

“No, not at all,” he’s quick to respond. That gets him a set of matching smiles, which he subconsciously returns.

Gabriella’s mother starts to steer them away after a cordial, “Have a nice day,” but the little girl pulls away. She runs back over to Barnes, flinging her arms around his middle and squeezing tight. He freezes for a moment, then tentatively rubs her shoulder with his human hand.

“Gabriella!” Each syllable is sharply emphasized, but the mother’s face is wryly amused.

The little girl squeezes even tighter for a second before letting go and walking back towards her mom. She turns around after a few steps and graces him with her radiant grin again. Then she waves and runs back to her mom, the two of them walking hand in hand out of the room.

Barnes stares after them for a long moment. He remembers similar dark hair done up in curlier pigtails than his sister’s. The little girl upon whose head these pigtails had swung, she had skipped toward her motionless father. The girl’s large, luminous eyes had locked on the Asset’s, and then they saw no more.

A lone tear traces a line down his face as Barnes jerks over to a bench. He quietly crumples onto it, clenching his eyes shut and desperately trying to remember Becca again. But that only swirls the girls together in his mind’s eyes, dirt and blood mixing...

So he blinks his eyes open, staring down at the floor. He shifts his elbows to his knees in an attempt to appear casually relaxed to any passersby. In doing so, he catches sight of the dark blue hair tie on his metal wrist. Almost reflexively, he rests the first two fingers of his right hand against where the band meets the underside of his wrist. He looks like he’s taking his pulse (which in a way, he is). Focusing on the sense-memory of Gabriella’s hug, he slowly steadies his breathing.

Once he’s regained equilibrium, Barnes rises and resumes his intel gathering mission. Subtly, he makes his way back toward where the walls of information begin. He zeroes in on just the words and information as he makes a second circuit of the exhibit’s rooms.

Finally, he gets an inkling of where Rogers’ home could be: _New York. I’m just a kid from Brooklyn._

Well, he doesn’t have any better ideas.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Headcanon about the little girl seeing Bucky in the Smithsonian taken and expanded upon from this post that I've re-pinned on pinterest: https://www.pinterest.com/pin/AT6_yL_4kILjK2CGCunkhgDF9-Hbxct_-7wYuL1vvC6OK57u8B1SMDw/


	4. Brooklyn, Brooklyn, Take Me In

There is no way Barnes would willingly use public transportation. Even considering it makes his palm sweat a little. For crying out loud, he’s traversed deserts and Siberian wastelands on foot! Surely he can handle walking to Brooklyn.

So he returns to his safe-room for his duffel of pilfered supplies. Of course, now is when he notices that it contains some basic surveillance gear, which he could have planted in Rogers’ room and belongings earlier. With a sigh, he finishes taking inventory (of both his supplies and armory) and hoists the bag onto his back. Satisfied that he could pass as a drifter, he heads out soon after the sun sets.

* * *

 

He parallels the roads for the most part, sticking to nearby woods when he can. He keeps up a steady, brisk pace. Periodically, cars and trucks speed by in the nearby roads. Sometimes, he can hear music from a vehicle: if the driver either has their windows down or is listening to a deeply thumping bass.

The first time he hears a car’s music, he’s surprised enough to physically startle. **_Music_** _…_ He had forgotten it entirely. But now he recalls fragments of songs and moments: swirling skirts in dance halls, Steve’s and his crackling radio, and humming, whistling, or singing while he worked at the docks.

Suddenly, but seamlessly, smooth clarinet accented by staccato brass resounds throughout Barnes’ mind, and he finds himself walking in time with the internal beat.

The music in his mind fades in and out, but he doesn’t mind. He walks until he must stop, sleeps when he cannot stay awake any longer, and eats enough to keep him going. He only ever sleeps for a few hours at a time (that is, if he’s lucky and the inevitable nightmares wait for a couple REM cycles), but he makes himself stop a few times a day to refuel and take care of biological necessities. So it goes for half a week.

* * *

 

Barnes reaches Brooklyn in the afternoon of the fourth day.

He stills for several minutes, heart-rate slightly elevated. But then he breathes deeply, and the scents filling his nostrils tickle his oldest memory-fragments, the ones that taste like honest dust and organic rust.

Without his conscious volition, his legs start moving. At first, he’s terrified that he’s following a programmed Hydra directive (despite his gut feeling to the contrary). His respiration spikes alongside his heart-rate now. His blind panic almost overtakes him, but then his eyes land on an alleyway. There’s nothing particularly special about the alleyway, but it’s right next to a diner, which proclaims itself retro.

* * *

 

_Steve was supposed to meet Bucky almost ten minutes ago. If it were anyone else, he’d just smoke a ciggy and wait for at least another ten. But it wasn’t anyone else. Dread prickled down his spine as he straightened up from leaning against the wall._

_Bucky walked away from the theater and toward the diner Steve had been able to pick up some shifts as a busboy from. He knew his punk, so Bucky checked every alley he passed. Just ‘cause he didn’t hear an active scuffle didn’t mean nothin’. Steve coulda been left passed out somewhere, and that terrified Bucky like little else did._

_Bucky must’ve passed at least a dozen alleys, steps quickening with each empty one. He finally heard something when he had almost reached the diner: the sickening sound of fists against bony flesh. He ran right into the alley, punching one of ‘em in the kidneys and the other in the nose. While they were still taken by surprise, Bucky shoved them away from his swaying friend, planting himself in front of Steve._

_“Scram,” Bucky snarled._

_Fear won out over anger and the thugs fled._

_As soon as they were out of sight, Bucky turned to Steve. His emotions were churning too much for him to speak yet, so he catalogued the blond’s injuries wordlessly. Steve tried to bat his hands away when Bucky tilted his friend’s head to fully take in the state of his face. The brunet’s fear and adrenaline washed away with a sigh. He handed over his handkerchief and threw a steadying arm around the shorter man’s shoulders before steering them back toward their dingy apartment._

_“C’mon, Buck,” Steve mumbled, “’M fine. Don’t need you babyin’ me. I had ‘em—”_

_“On the ropes, yeah, yeah,” Bucky cut him off. “Can it, punk.”_

* * *

 

Okay, so Barnes’ current instincts are probably from Before...if he’s just remembered a true memory, that is. It would fit with the intel from the Smithsonian: his past self being best friends with the Little Punk. But the terse words and coiled anger suffusing the memory strike an astonishing similarity to Barnes’ current consciousness. The memory-fragment certainly seems legitimate, yet throughout the decades, Barnes has learned to not trust himself.

Regardless, he lets his legs lead him to a condemned apartment complex in a run-down neighborhood. They carry him up a rotting staircase and into a set of cramped rooms on the fourth floor. Here, he gets dozens upon dozens of impressions – too many too quickly to make sense of any of them.

Barnes blacks out from that torrent, coming back to awareness in a rickety fire escape at the top of the building. Faint tremors shiver down his arms. Cold sweat sticks to the flesh one. The metal one whirs and clicks disconcertingly as the plates shift back and forth.

He remembers that there’s a large jacket in his duffel, so he drags it out and over his knees. He re-secures the duffel to his back before wedging it and himself into a corner. Then the exhausted ex-assassin folds up under his make-shift blanket, hugging his knees to his chest before falling into an uneasy sleep.

* * *

 

The next few days pass in an anxious haze. How long should he wait here? This atmosphere unsettles him; it is too reminiscent of dust settled into the grooves of a gravestone. (But whose gravestone? Jo… Rogers? Barnes sees stiff, tiny shoulders supporting a shock of familiar straw-colored hair in the corner of his sight-line…but nothing else comes to him except for a sense of sorrow-tinged unease.)

Barnes only moves when biological necessity prompts him, otherwise drifting in and out of consciousness restlessly. The nightmares don’t stop while he’s hunched on the fire escape, but here, he always emerges from them soundlessly. An indeterminate amount of times passes.

When he sees Rogers on the street below, he almost believes that he’s hallucinating. But no, when he blinks the grogginess from his eyes, those unbelievably broad shoulders and blond hair are still nearing the building that drew Barnes to it as well.

Having the Captain in his sights again makes Barnes’ whole body stagger into the rusting wrought-iron of his fire escape with relief. Quickly, he recovers to motionlessly watch the hulking blond. The Big Punk steps hesitantly onto the cracked sidewalk in front of the building and pauses. His gaze falls behind his ball-cap, and his shoulders droop even further past his “I’m just a civilian” hunch. Even though Barnes can’t observe his countenance, he examines the rest of his body, finding only one lingering sign of the damage the Asset had wrought upon him (a slight, barely perceptible limp). 

Barnes’ relief is short-lived, however. Rogers finally heaves in a deep breath and unknowingly follows the steps of his long-lost friend. Barnes can no longer see the blond without giving away his location and proximity, but he can hear Rogers’ disconcertingly heavy tread on the stairs. He can also smell the Captain when Rogers finally enters their old apartment. Now Barnes is assailed by more memory-fragments, which leave him feeling even more raw.

His attention sharply returns to the present when he hears a muffled thunk and…rough sniffling? Oh God, is Steve crying? Barnes is stunned when the sniffles crescendo to sobs. _This…doesn’t happen,_ is Barnes’ first thought. _He only cried when his Ma died._ And even then, his sense-memory assures him that Steve had cried without a single sound until he had thought Bucky had fallen asleep. Then, like now, the blond’s sobs were painfully restrained, escaping his chest like wildly thrown punches.

And suddenly, Barnes actively wants something: to enfold Steve in his arms and comfort him like his past self had. He wants this with an alarming fierceness, but he forces himself to stay where he is. He can’t. He just _can’t_ go to him. Not yet. And besides, the Asset’s not supposed to _want._ So he stays hidden, ears turned down and back in conflicted misery as he just listens to Steve's ugly sobs slowly hiccup down into quiet sniffles.

Finally, Steve hauls himself upright and quietly returns to the street. Bu—Barnes can hang back beyond the reach of the Captain’s senses and still follow Steve’s scent. So the brunet shadows the blond all the way back to a brownstone apartment that he apparently shares with Wilson.

Barnes memorizes the location of the window Steve opens, then darts into the neighboring building to secure his own room to settle into.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! Comments and kudos are greatly appreciated! I'll do my best finish this relatively soon, but my time-management is just pitifully woeful. My only promise is that this fic is not abandoned, and will eventually be finished. 
> 
> If you started reading around when I initially posted, you'll notice some changes. I had an epiphany with how to structure the different parts of my story, so I took the first two chapters I had posted and put them as the beginning of this fic's sequel. I didn't delete those chapters, just moved them around. Hopefully, this change will help the overarching story make more sense.


	5. Establishing Contact

The Asset awakens suddenly. Initial assessment of environment: solid walls to its six and its three, approximately two yards of open space to its nine, and there at its eleven, Natalia Romanova perches on the open window.

“What do you want with Rogers?”

The Asse—Barnes, _Barnes,_ dammit. Barnes searches for his new mission imperative, finally finding the appropriate response, “Intel.”

He sees the nanosecond flash of surprise across her face before she can smooth it away. “For what?”

Barnes’ brow furrows. Why _does_ he need this intel? What is he even going to use it for?

“Myself.”

The word just slips out of his mouth, startling both of them.

“And your mission?”

He flinches, taking a few moments to remind himself that he won’t be punished due to his previous mission being— “Aborted.”

“What about Hydra?”

“They don’t. Have me now,” he manages to get out past the panic. But the effort costs him. His vision narrows as he begins to hyperventilate. The tail whips out of its battered sheath, slapping against the walls at his back and side. Barnes rolls to his feet, allowing it to swish through the air in broad, desperate strokes as he presses his flesh hand into the wall beside him for stability.

Once his breathing subsides to more reasonable levels, Natalia resumes her questioning with, “How do you plan on getting your intel?”

 _Intel gathering requires covert surveillance and if necessary, subsequent contact for interrogation,_ his mission-brain informs him while the rest of him feels like how a dial-tone sounds.

But then he remembers the pamplet that he’s hoarded from the museum exhibit. He remembers how…reassuring it is to hold it and read it occasionally, when he feels bereft of any purpose or meaning.

 _Bucky pressed his hand to his uniform’s breast pocket, right above his heart. The chill of the night air dug into the marrow of his bones, down into his very soul, it seemed like. He stared down blankly at his boots, unable to muster the energy to care about the ash falling onto them from his nearly finished cigarette, the last one from his rationed pack. Before the end could burn his fingers, he dropped the cigarette stub and ground the ember out with a foot. The men around him had blurred into indistinct figures as drab as the woods surrounding them, but he clutched tightly to his pocket, grounding himself with the pressure. Clumsily, he flipped it open and pulled out a few folded-up pieces of paper. Gently tracing the words he’d practically memorized by now, Bucky murmured to himself that they were_ **safe** , _his family and his best friend were safe._

When Barnes’ answer comes, it comes with remarkable ease: “Letters.”

* * *

The next week, he begins preliminary surveillance in order to get a broad sense of his targets’ routine. Once he determines the opportune time to scope out their living space, he can finally plant some of his liberated-from-Hydra bugs. So Barnes slips into the top floors of the brownstone a few minutes after the two other men leave to go to a VA support group (“I swear to God, Steve, this is the only place I’m taking your mopey, _still recovering_ ass. Because no, you are not well enough to start 'jogging' again, you restless lunatic!").

He plants his bugs in some strategic locations in each room that’s in use (as many on the lower floors are either empty or set with traps for intruders) and on Steve’s leather jacket, which had been left behind in favor of a looser fitting hoodie.

Natalia had begrudgingly allowed the surveillance equipment (after all, she had her own – in the building, that is, not on Steve’s jacket). Surprisingly, she had neither taken him into custody nor counteracted his plans. This supposed indifference was, and continues to be, perplexing. So Barnes proceeds with bemused caution.

Regardless of the Black Widow’s motivations for her inaction, now he can finally begin proper surveillance.

Relaxing slightly after setting everything up, Barnes starts to explore the inhabited rooms on the upper two floors. Between the VA session and travel time, Barnes has approximately twenty more minutes to safely do so. He needs to know which rooms the Captain inhabits most frequently in order to determine where he should initiate correspondence.

Other than a couple rooms at the top floor (which are littered with empty pizza boxes), the building hasn’t been occupied long enough to give it a homey feel. Overall, the spaces are severely lacking in personality, but he picks up enough to recognize the bedroom Rogers has claimed. After all, it's the room where his scent is most concentrated.

The spartan room is only embellished by a couple journals on the nightstand and several quilts and fleece blankets piled at the foot of the bed. As he picks up the first journal, a small square floats free from between the pages. He crouches down, reaching out to put it back. But when he sees the image on the square, he freezes. The picture is a headshot of Sergeant Barnes, hat tipped just slightly. His young face free from the horrors it would soon witness.

Bar—James? loses time, only consciously returning to the present when he hears Wilson and Rogers ascending the stairs. Panic overtakes him, and propells him out the closest window and across the street to his little bolthole.

* * *

Almost a full week passes. James spends most of that time listening in on Steve. To his complete lack of surprise, Steve is terrible at maintaining bed-rest. The giant Punk’s restlessness is truly unparalleled. (Although there are a few memory flashes of the tiny Punk coming close, snapping at his pushy nursemaids and going out to get himself beaten up the moment he can leave the apartment.) In the present brownstone, like in the decrepit old apartment, the only thing that reliably keeps Steve calm and occupied is sketching.

So James waits for Wilson to take Steve back to the VA before returning to the brownstone. (“I swear to God, Rogers, if you don’t stay in this wheelchair I will take you right up to the medical wing Stark’s installing in his tower. Don’t even try me. I don't care that you _can_ walk because you damn well _shouldn't_.”)

Now, James hovers uncertainly by the door to Steve’s bedroom for a long, stretching moment before entering it. Since he was last here, the room inexplicably feels warmer. That could be due to a few more signs of habitation, but it is entirely possible that they were there last week and Barnes had been too distracted to notice them. Shrugging of his vague disquiet, he notices some pencil and eraser shavings in the small trash-can by the bed. And when he brings himself to glance at the bedside table, a small notebook has been left open onto a page with a list catches his eye. He pointedly ignores the journal and the sketchbook next to it. Carefully, he flips through the little notebook to an empty page around the middle, which is surrounded by a significant amount of blank pages on either side. He places it back on the table. He stares at the innocuous pencil lying next to it.

Quickly, trying not to think about why he needs it, he snatches it with his fist. He looks down. The pencil feels oddly clumsy in his deft fingers, as they hover awkwardly above the pad. His mind blanks. What intel most needs verification and clarification? _The crying. Why was he crying at the old apartment?_ A corner of his mind whispers, but he can’t write that down.

Finally, James’ writing jerks across the page, and then he drops out of the window like the ghost they made him into.

* * *

That night, he hears when Steve puts his pencil to the note. Writing sounds different than sketching, okay?

But Barnes can’t bring himself to return until another full day has passed.

The note is still attached to its pad, lying innocently on the sturdy night-stand. He silently stalks to it.

_Why didn’t you ever stop fighting until the last time?_

**I never could stand bullies. And last time, I only fought as long as I had to, couldn’t keep fighting you… ~~You’re not~~ You have never been a bully.**

_Did ~~Bar~~ I have a sister?_

**Yes. You loved each other a ~~helluva~~ lot.**

_Are you safe?_

**Yes. As safe as I can be, because of my job. But I’m on leave now, and only a few close friends know where I am.**

**Author's Note:**

> This work is not abandoned! Regularly updating is not going to happen, but I hope to finish this first part of the story in a few months' time (before the summer??) 
> 
> Thank you for reading my story, especially if you leave comments, and/or kudos! Constructive criticism and suggestions are welcome. ^_^


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